Captcha for the Cave

[uristmcguffin]

Frankly, I'm very surprised there are no anti-bot measures in place already.

 

I don't know if anything like this has been suggested already, since I don't use the forums very much, so if this is a repeated suggestion, I am sorry.

 

 

 

The suggestion: When you go to steal an egg from a biome, there ought to be a captcha. The way the game is right now, it is very easy for one player to use a bot and steal many rares for themselves.

[Obscure_Trash]

It has been suggested in the past. It's not received a large amount of support in the past because:

-It would get very annoying quickly to have to do that many captchas

-On occasion users have had trouble getting captchas to load and show up

-The fairest and most logical way to handle this is to give the egg to the first person who clicks it rather than giving everyone a captcha and having them race to the egg twice, but what happens if they never finish the captcha? Does the egg just sit there in limbo? Is that user locked?

 

The only plus is that captcha has upgraded and you no longer have to type illegible stuff.

 

All that being said, who says there aren't anti-bot measures in place? As well, if you know or suspect someone of using a bot, you can report it to TJ (or a mod) and he can look into it or take care of it. ^^

 

Honestly, I don't think scripting is that common/huge of a problem that we need to put users out in order to try and stop it. ^^;;

Edited August 4, 2015 by SockPuppet Strangler

[dragongrrl]

The last time I used anything that required Captcha was extremely frustrating, since it would sometimes take two or three tries to get it accepted. I haven't needed it anywhere in maybe a year, so I don't know about the improvements, but it was often difficult.

 

 

[cyradis4]

Captchas are problematic indeed, and I do not support captcha on egg catching.

 

I suspect that the whole botting thing may be over-blown because the biomes just don't *move* except during a release. And on the shuffle, the previous 3 blockers are often as not replaced promptly by the same 3 blocker breeds.

 

So I think if we can get the biomes actually moving for a change..... The seeming "botting" will go away. A lot of the problems is that some people have the patience to really stalk the biomes hard.... And I don't know about you, but I've neither the time nor patience nor sense of timing to be there for each 5 minute shuffle all day. And that's what it takes, to get lots of rares.

 

Cheers!

C4.

[angelicdragonpuppy]

We actually had this in the cave once. It was completely awful and I never want it back again.

 

Since TJ has ways to fairly reliably distinguish people who are multiscrollers from people who are playing with family members, I'm sure he has ways to keep track of any fishy mass rare snagging activity that could indicate bot use.

[Syphoneira]

I'm not big on captchas for egg catching myself, in part because sometimes one catches an egg without realizing it until MUCH later - but just to mention, I actually did recently encounter something which used a simple check-mark in a box saying 'I'm not a bot'. Dunno how secure that would be, though.

 

Although the suggestion I saw some time back and liked in that area involved using characters similar to captcha text for the egg descriptions, distorting them enough to presumably confuse bots while still being legible to people, although, for all I know, there may well be multiple methods used by different scripts which might not involve descriptions at all.

 

As cyrados4 points out, though, the major problem is actually with the biomes being plugged up with the same type of blocker eggs being endlessly regenerated every hourly to endlessly reappear in the biomes, since almost nobody wants more of them, at least not at full time.

 

We'd probably do better to encourage a switch to the untaken biome eggs being shuffled off to the AP to come up as low-time eggs to be taken and raised into the ratios on a player=responsive basis, rather than endlessly regenerated to continuously block the variety we have available in the biomes, if it could only appear.

[Doublelift]

If the scripter was a fast typer, it would be a bigger disadvantage to other players.

 

1. they're running a script, so that places a disadvantage on other players

2. if the script "catches" the egg before anyone else can react, the scripter can simply type the captcha in quickly because of their typing speed

 

So I disagree with this ^^"

(Sorry for editing, wanted to change some things!)

Edited August 5, 2015 by Doublelift

[Syphoneira]

If the scripter was a fast typer, it would be a disadvantage to other catchers. Because one, they have faster internet, two they have faster typing speed, and three, they'll most likely get to the egg faster than a normal person can. So I disagree with this

 

 

I kinda had the impression from something someone said years back (granted, just one person commenting on a thread here) that scripts were more or less automatic and generally left to run on their own - would people actually be sitting over them all that time, and with a script running, could the people do anything with the window running the script themselves, for hunting?

 

And if they had such fast internet, why not just catch themselves, if they're going to be on?

 

(Sorry, technologically deprived! )

 

 

[Doublelift]

 

I kinda had the impression from something someone said years back (granted, just one person commenting on a thread here) that scripts were more or less automatic and generally left to run on their own - would people actually be sitting over them all that time, and with a script running, could the people do anything with the window running the script themselves, for hunting?

 

And if they had such fast internet, why not just catch themselves, if they're going to be on?

 

(Sorry, technologically deprived!  )

I don't even know how scripts work so I have no idea

 

You have a point there, though, but since the caves don't move quick anymore, maybe that's a reason for it?

[Syphoneira]

I don't even know how scripts work so I have no idea

 

You have a point there, though, but since the caves don't move quick anymore, maybe that's a reason for it?

 

 

You're right, the boring hunting would certainly encourage anyone considering scripting to do that just to avoid all of the refreshing over unmoving eggs/having to remember to pop back in every 5 minutes for the shuffles.

 

But (with the usual caveat of my sucky memory) the post made by that member (who didn't even understand that was cheating?!) was made way back when we still had the single Cave, and even possibly before TJ stopped the AP Blocking the Cave off most of the time.

[The Flash]

Nah. That would be hella irritating.

[Jazeki]

No, thank you. I have serious issues with captcha when playing on my phone.

[RecycledHeart]

What about those ones that just require that you click? I've seen them with taking polls or signing up on a website. No words, you just click and your done.

 

 

And how about it only does that for either user based rares or site based rares?

[JavaTigress]

A nope from me, too.

 

I don't like Captcha because they are unhandy at their best. I would HATE to see them applied to DC in ANY form, but ESPECIALLY not to egg catching. As others have said, that would create a whole lot of problems. ALL Captchas would do in inconvenience the rest of us in an effort to stop the cheaters.... and as C4 pointed out, I am not entirely SURE that cheaters are the biggest part of the problem or as wide spread as some make it sound. Oh, I am sure they DO exist... just.... AS C4 said,I believe there may be other factors to the issues with hunting in the biomes. I am not even entirely certain they would discourage cheaters ENTIRELY because, as someone else pointed out, if someone were a fast typer there might be ways around it.

Edited August 5, 2015 by Silverswift

[danicast]

No.

Hunting is hard enough as it is now.

[Prince_Xanthius]

While something to stop scripters would be required (assuming they are a big problem. Not sure how you'd work that out?) I don't think this is the best way to go about it. It would be annoying, and would cause all sorts of problems - who gets the egg, the first to click or the first to fill the captcha? If I misclick, then don't fill the captcha, what happens? Is the egg destroyed? Added to the back of the queue? Does that mark me as a scripter for not filling it in? If I open multiple tabs of eggs at once (which is the only way I have ever been able to catch holidays or new releases during the rush), would I still be allowed to? Or would I have to click - captcha, click - captcha, and so probably destroy my ability to catch them.

 

Maybe randomly every 50 or so refreshes the cave asks for a captch would work better? Still get annoying as that's not that many really given the nature of the game, but it would slow down scripters (or, at least, the ones using the first script that came up on google for me just now, which does have an auto refresh function built in).

 

I think we need to establish if it is a major problem, and then work out a better way to prevent it though, rather than adding something as irritating as captchas

[DragonNighthowler]

I don't support. I don't believe scripters are that big of a problem so that we need something that's going to be more of an annoyance than a solution. This reminds me to the anticopy in some games, where people who had actually bought the game legally had to download an illegal version because their game was virtually unplayable due to the anticopy software. Cheaters will be cheaters, they'll find a way around. This type of measures punish the legal players.

[MrsFindlay]

No support. It would be annoying and--for me--unnecessary.

[JavaTigress]

I don't support. I don't believe scripters are that big of a problem so that we need something that's going to be more of an annoyance than a solution. This reminds me to the anticopy in some games, where people who had actually bought the game legally had to download an illegal version because their game was virtually unplayable due to the anticopy software. Cheaters will be cheaters, they'll find a way around. This type of measures punish the legal players.

Yes, this exactly.

 

I always HATED those too.

I have owned a few games that had those copy protections on them and they always were, at best, a pain in the neck and... if you happened to lose the code for unlocking your game, it became a REAL problem to get back into a game that you fairly bought and paid for. Maybe this isn't QUITE as bad as that, but it is almost so. The point here is that those who break the rules don't CARE. I don't know how easy it is to bypass captcha ( maybe someone can enlighten me?), but I can guarantee that IF there is a way, people WILL find it. In fact, if anything, the captcha might just provoke more cheating than whatever amount exists NOW purely because it would make hunting eggs the 'legal' way too much of a pain in the neck.

Edited August 5, 2015 by Silverswift

[Seghs]

Just because someone's computer is faster than yours/they get an egg first doesn't mean they're using a bot

[HeatherMarie]

No, no, and please no.

 

Do we even have a *reason* to suspect that bots/scripts are *that* much of a problem? The reason people aren't seeing rares/uncommons in the biomes is because they are supposed to be rare/uncommon. And the biomes get blocked up with non-moving eggs and maybe that can *seem* like bots because that's all you see, but maybe that's because that's all that is *there*.

 

Really, unless TJ actually says that there is a big bot/script problem, I just don't think we need something that will inconvenience EVERYONE.

[Fuzzbucket]

Just because someone's computer is faster than yours/they get an egg first doesn't mean they're using a bot

No, but believe me,. some people are. Some of us report them when we can see it happening, and sometimes scrolls DO get burned for it.

 

That said - adding a captcha would NOT be the right solution.

[silverstreak12]

personally, in instances where there is a captcha standing between me and something i'm trying very quickly to get, i'm more prone to mistype in overeagerness. it's one thing to get the "someone else grabbed it before you did" message, but i'd never stop kicking myself if a typo made me miss something really rare from the cave (even if i wouldn't have typed it in soon enough anyway). no support.

[BlindWolf]

This would make egg catching insufferable. We really don't need anything that ends up making hunting less fun.

[TJ09]

I'd like to point out that Google's newest version of ReCAPTCHA appears to suck way less: https://www.google.com/recaptcha/. Dragon Cave's been using it for a little while now on the various places that use CAPTCHAs.

 

That said, I don't think this is a solution that's particularly effective, for a problem that is being overblown compared to how bad things actually are.

 

To see why I don't believe this would work, let's consider a simple decision point: Do you get the egg before or after the CAPTCHA?

 

If it's after, then that inconveniences the humans as much as the bots, which is completely against the goals of a CAPTCHA.

 

If you do before, then you have some time to do it, and don't have to rush--presumably the egg would be "reserved" for some period of time, and if the CAPTCHA isn't completed it goes back into the pool. However, that means it's easy enough for a theoretical bot to get to the point where the egg is reserved, and then have a human come in to complete the CAPTCHA.

 

Though, to reiterate, I think the prevalence of "bots" is being pretty exaggerated.